Creative protests from around the world [Slideshow]

Thai protesters garnered plenty of attention this past week when they turned their demonstrations into a blood sport. After the country’s president resisted pressure from 10,000 anti-government “red shirts” on Sunday, leaders of the anti-government rallies promised they would:

… collect “1 million cubic centimeters” of protesters’ blood, or about 264 gallons (1,000 liters), to spill at Government House in the Thai capital by Tuesday evening — a tactic slammed by the Red Cross as wasteful and potentially unhygienic.

And they kept their promise, hurling “plastic bags filled with their own blood into [President] Abhisit’s residential compound” on Wednesday.

While the Thai protesters might be dividing their country, they do share one quality with demonstrators from other parts of the world: They know how draw attention to their causes.

Pictured below are ten protests characterized with similar originality and zealous demonstrators. The best include animal rights supremacists, a group of mail-order protesters, and lactose intolerant police officers.